


lover, please stay

by prowlish



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 12:56:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16556159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prowlish/pseuds/prowlish
Summary: !!SPOILERS FOR LOST LIGHT 25!!Drift finds a way.





	lover, please stay

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song by Nothing but Thieves, which is vastly different than the context here, but when it came on my playlist this morning at work I started crying again at the last plaintive refrains of the song. I have way more to say at the end but all I will say here is that this is the first time in years that writing a fic has made me cry so much so take that as you will ahahaha...

> _ Coming home is strange. Strange and empty. Is it even home anymore? To borrow a phrase — home isn’t a place, it’s a person. Is that why? The very fabric of the air seems altered, knowing you won’t inhabit these walls anymore… _

 

Drift paused. The room had grown dark around him without his noticing, until the only light illuminating the room came from the datapad he’d been writing on. 

 

He stared at the words on the screen. The idea of writing out what he was thinking and feeling had seemed cathartic, but reading it over now it all seemed… inadequate. How could mere words encompass the breadth or depth of his feelings about Ratchet? About their life together?

 

Drift sighed and dropped the datapad on the table as he stood. He tried not to notice how his surroundings seemed so large now. (Too big for a lone mech.)

 

He shook his helm. “I need to sleep,” he muttered. The empty air just swallowed the words without reply.

 

—

 

It had been a week, but Drift still rolled over expectantly in the wide berth. Empty. Too large. They were thoughts that kept tickling the edges of his brain module, inklings that stirred an old nervous energy in him. The desire for motion, action. Restlessness wanting to set him adrift again.

 

That had always been easier, but it had never gotten him anywhere. 

 

Drift stood, tracing his fingertips along the end of the berth. Late nights and lingering mornings spent here, too many to count and he needn’t recall any specific one, just the broad feeling. Warmth, safety, stability — a gentle anchor against that flighty feeling in his extremities. Just the memory of it soothed the frayed edges. If Drift shuttered his optics, he could perfectly recall the sensation of Ratchet’s hands in his. 

 

He let out a long, soothing sigh and continued out. Past the cozy washracks, past a foyer and the closed door, into where their home truly opened up. Drift blinked, bit his lip hard… 

 

He turned his back. There had been so many good and happy memories here, but that seemed to hurt all the more. Retreating to their private room could be counterproductive in that sense, but Drift was a little more accustomed to it. The more area of their home he went through, the more tiny little stings he suffered from all the small, mundane, boring ways he would miss Ratchet. Death by a thousand cuts, as it were.

 

Drift gazed into the berth chamber. Empty. But there was a datapad and a stylus on the small writing desk, so Drift sat down — and wrote.

 

—

 

> _ Knowing didn’t make it easier.  _ Doesn’t _ make it easier. Sure, a good amount of the shock is gone. There is opportunity to brace. _
> 
>  
> 
> _ But how, exactly, does that work? How do you mourn someone who is still with you? How do you cherish the moments that remain when you’re bunched up tight, ready for the blow? All knowing you aren’t ready, not really.  _
> 
>  
> 
> _ And how does  _ this _ work? I keep thinking of what you would say, knowing I was still talking to you.  _

 

Drift put down the stylus, his fingertips a little shaky. That was it, he supposed. There was so much he wanted to say to Ratchet, always. Not that either of them had been reticent after a while, just that — they’d shared their lives for so long. Was he meant to simply stop?

 

Two weeks. This never would be easy, but Drift had ceased being spooked by the rest of their home, at least. But he hadn’t stopped writing to Ratchet, and perhaps he never would stop. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? As silly as he felt, that would be fine.

 

—

 

_ One day _ , he wrote _. I wonder about one day. Will I always measure my life by the time spent without you?  _

 

—

 

One day he would sit in the breakfast nook and smile as he internally tracked Ratchet’s morning routine.

 

One day he would sit in the so-called “tinker room” and look with fondness at the at the unfinished projects laid out on the table, instead of seeing the spectre of unfinished thoughts.

 

One day he would sit out front and watch sunrises and sunsets with a warm ache in his spark and the echo of hands on his shoulders.

 

One day.

 

_ One day. _

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, but I had to borrow Drift to process a few lingering feelings of my own. Not only in saying goodbye to the comic, but in a deeply personal level as well. At the beginning of this year, I lost my grandmother. It isn't quite the same, but grieving is still hard. Losing someone close and important to you is hard, even if you've had a full and long life together. So another gift this comic has given me has been a small avenue for catharsis with my favorite character. 
> 
> It hurts and it doesn't. Carrying someone closely in your heart doesn't stop you from missing them. Remembering something fun and lighthearted can still bring you to tears. But life was better with that connection than without it. And in time, it's the love that stays with you.
> 
> I'm grossly unprepared for this comic to leave my life but I'm infinitely grateful for what its given me.
> 
> ✿ [twitter.com/stardustbytes](https://twitter.com/stardustbytes) ☆ [stardustland](https://cosmicstardustland.wordpress.com/about/) ✿


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